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JANUARY OCTOBER 6, 29,2022 2015| The | TheJewish JewishHome Home OCTOBER 29, 2015 | The Jewish Home
My 40-Year Journey Away from Binge Eating By Naomi Joseph, MS
Have
you ever stood in the dark at the kitchen counter dipping frozen, stale challah rolls alternatively in peanut butter and jelly that was opened before the flood, while on high alert for approaching humans? Maybe salty and crunchy is your go-to, kiechel dipped in hummus and tahini? Cheeses of all kinds. Anything resembling cake. Before you know it, forty-five minutes have lapsed and if not for the crumbs and empty wrappers strewn before you, you would have no idea what you actually ate. And while you’ve done nothing to resolve the reason you’ve commenced the coping mechanism of using erratic eating behaviors once again, you feel calmed and are ready to move on to your next task. Perhaps it’s homework with the kids or having the in-laws over for Shabbat. Maybe you need to return to your computer to finish that overwhelming project your boss is waiting for. Using cookies as fortitude has successfully helped strengthen your resolve to move forward. Or are you really just in a gluten fog, having sufficiently numbed yourself to the underlying pain, stress, or discomfort? Can your Grand Canyon-sized void ever really be filled with all the food you’re trying to stuff in it? You pray for a way out, for a “normal” life, where you’re “normal” with food and as a result are free to live in the body that was intended for you, but you don’t know how. The habit of reaching for food to pull you through is too engrained. You can’t tell anyone about it because it’s too shameful. What would people say? Nobody wants to be associated with being gluttonous or out of control. And if this isn’t you, then I guarantee it’s your slim neighbor, fashionable aunt, successful coach, or the unassuming rabbi’s wife. You would never suspect it because they are so “on the go,” “put together,” and “make it happen.” Certainly nobody would have suspected it of me. Yet I suffered with Binge Eating Disorder for over four decades. I was deeply engulfed in the war with
food, and now I am not. If you are like I was, and are looking for a way out, know that you are not alone, and there is always hope. Binge eating disorder, as defined by eating disorders specialist Ira M. Sacker, M.D, is eating large amounts of food in a short amount of time without feeling hungry. You can experience a lack of control, or shame, guilt, embarrassment, and the desire to hide by eating in secrecy. Negative body image and self-hatred can further enhance emotional stress, depression, and anxiety. It is at one end of the eating disorders umbrella, with anorexia being on the other side of the spectrum. Binge eating is reported to affect 2.8 million Americans – and those are only the ones who have come forward. The real number is estimated to be more than double that, and the numbers have increased considerably since the start of COVID, the world locked in with our kitchens, for better or worse. As a universal community, we seem to be at war with our refrigerators. Yet as observant Jews, the reality of being sequestered for hours on end at our tables laden with decadent foods is anything but novel. We are no strangers to our homes being filled with Shabbat and yom tov cheer, where the guest list is as endless as the amount of tempting delicacies served. Delicious, unique dishes prepared with special care are meant to sanctify Shabbat, and we further sanctify the food by making blessings over it and taking pleasure in it. (Note how I said “special” foods, not “fattening” foods. Fattening is not part of the criteria, although it’s certainly part of the experience.) What about the bubbah meisa that we don’t gain weight on holy days? Puh-leeze! Go to any nutritionist in any Jewish neighborhood, and they will easily be able to document otherwise. Just the challah alone can singlehandedly wipe out an entire week of careful eating and exercise. We turn to our beautiful Jewish religion, the
most omnipresent, spiritual defense we have against the negative things we want to keep out of our lives, and invite in all the good, the spiritual, Torah, and a deep, meaningful connection to HaSshem. But at the same time, we get slammed with all of this food with the turn of every Shabbat, chag, bris, wedding, vort, sheva brachot, shiur, shalom zachor, kiddush, bar/bat mitzvah, and any and all events that seem to pop up on any given Tuesday. They derail us from achieving the perfect balance our bodies were meant to be in and therefore keep us from being in a state where can focus on growing the spirituality inside of us. How can we best serve ourselves, Hashem, and our fellow man when our bodies are overstuffed with all this food? Our bodies that house our neshamas, the living, breathing, divine piece of Hashem that resides within all of us. An ironic double-edged sword, indeed. Studies on epigenetics have linked eating disorders to both descendants, and relatives, of Holocaust survivors and descendants of Eastern European immigrants. My father, a first-generation American, does not have Binge Eating Disorder, but he is a “fast eater” – hands down an Olympic gold medalist of fast eating, his torso leaning forward over his plate on the table, with one hand bringing his food to him mouth as quickly as possible, while the other hand encircles his plate, protecting what is rightfully his, ready to swat away anyone who dares to pilfer his perfectly procured meal. Different eating disorders within our Jewish community have been wreaking havoc on shidduchim (“Yes, Mrs. Jacobson. I know it says size 2 on her resume, but what kind of 2? Like a 0-2, or 2-4?”), fertility (I know it did for us, ten years of trying for children before our twins were finally delivered. Thank G-d!), and self-worth (“I’m not as thin as she is,” “I don’t deserve to have all of those wonderful things because I don’t look like her”), which affects an endless array of basic life choices
